Homophobia and Harassment in the Online Gaming Age

The explosive growth of online gaming communities in recent years has created amazing opportunities to go head-to-head against all kinds of players from around the world. But the vast freedom and flexibility of online play on consoles and PC has also given rise to something more insidious – a new place for bigotry and homophobia to manifest and thrive.

A little competitive banter over text or voice chat is all but expected when gaming with strangers. However, it's becoming increasingly difficult to play games online without encountering derisive homophobic comments or other hateful speech. Homophobic slurs – whether intentionally derisive or not – have become ingrained in the lexicon of many gamers, and the level of outright anti-gay sentiments and harassment tends to multiply substantially when other players discover there's a gay gamer in their midst. For the average straight player, one person spouting homophobic obscenities can ruin the experience, but take a moment to consider the impact this can have on members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender gaming community.

An omnipresent problem

Though it varies from game to game and server to server, the general atmosphere towards gay gamers in online gaming communities is a hostile one, says Flynn De Marco, founder and editor-in-chief of GayGamer.net. First-person shooters and war games like Halo and Call of Duty seem to spawn the most homophobic behavior among players, notes De Marco. It's not the games themselves that are the problem; it's the kinds of players they attract.

"Derogatory words for gay are used almost constantly while playing online to insult other players, gay or not," he says. "If you make yourself known as a gay player, you can be snubbed, sent nasty e-mails, turned on by your own teammates, and verbally abused."

Prior to Microsoft's decision to implement an across-the-board policy prohibiting any indicators of sexual orientation in gamertags and player bios, one anonymous gay Halo enthusiast posted a YouTube video documenting the harassment he received during a series of Halo 3 matches over Xbox Live. His experiences are not unique. Angela Simpson, content manager for LesbianGamers.com, has friends who now refuse to play in open rooms on Microsoft's gaming service after incidents that occurred there. And while Simpson herself has had some great experiences gaming with strangers over Xbox Live, she's also been on the receiving end of verbal abuse from other players on numerous occasions – and not just because she's a lesbian.

"I don't generally opt into a game with 'Hi guys, I'm a lesbian,' so more of the abuse I've had over the years has been about gender more than sexuality," says Simpson. "'Get back in the kitchen, bitch' is one that is thrown around quite a lot. I can only imagine the types of things these kinds of gamers would say were my gamertag more lesbian affiliated. I recall a session a few years ago where I was in a room and the discussion [other players] were having turned to 'queers.' I stayed in the room a minute or so and was fairly stunned by the uninformed mentality. I made my opinion known politely and was flooded with abuse, which continued even after I left the room. It was highly unpleasant."

Even Spartan armor can't deflect discrimination.

The harassment that LGBT gamers regularly face online is effectively shoving them back in the closet, forcing them to be more insular and stick to solo gaming or only playing with friends if they want to avoid being targeted.

"I often hear gamers say 'Why do you have to segregate yourselves? Aren't we all just gamers?' My answer is, quite frankly, no," says De Marco. "There are many people out there who constantly remind us that we are not 'all just gamers.'"

Setting up isolated safe spaces for LGBT gamers to play is one way to ensure they're meeting like-minded people, but it's a double-edged sword, adds Simpson. "You then have the issue of removing yourself from open spaces, which kind of lets the hate continue to manifest in some sense."

The ongoing struggle

Xbox Live isn't the only online gaming space where these issues arise, but its voice chat capabilities and high level of popularity among players of all stripes makes the number of incidents that occur fairly high. Microsoft's initial attempt to limit homophobic activities on Xbox Live – which led to prohibiting any expression of sexual orientation whatsoever in player gamertags – did not sit well with a lot of gamers. The problem with this and some policies enacted by other companies is they tend to punish the victims, says Simpson.

Not all fun and games."[Looking] at this from the lesbian perspective, if I want to identify as a lesbian so other lesbians can find me, I can't. I also cannot even mention this in my bio," she adds. "On the one hand, it can be argued this is a measure of protection by Microsoft to limit the homophobia I may get. But surely that should be my choice. I can't even put the Lesbian Gamers URL in my bio. So who is actually being punished?"

Xbox Live's Director of Policy and Enforcement Stephen Toulouse did briefly respond to our initial request for an interview, though numerous subsequent attempts to obtain comments from him for this story were unsuccessful by press time. However, during a panel discussion on homophobia in virtual communities last year sponsored by Electronic Arts and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Toulouse acknowledged Microsoft's handling of the situation could have been better.

"I think we did a very inelegant job," he told the panel members and audience at the event. "I think we've come to realizing we went the wrong route in the policy we have on Xbox Live."

Toulouse noted he has LGBT representation on his team, and everyone is working on figuring out a way to allow for the expression of sexual orientation and provide gamers with ways to stay safe.

Despite positive efforts being made by some members of the videogame industry, successfully combating the larger issue of discrimination and harassment in online gaming requires a lot more than good intentions, according to De Marco.

"Honestly, companies and journalists can talk until they are blue in the face, but we will not see any major changes with this situation until the general gaming populace matures a bit and wakes up to their own bigotry and hatred."